He says from the time he opened the email to the time he turned the laptop off was about
15 minutes....

I'm thinking maybe the virus didn't have time to encrypt a lot of files...

Question...Can I mount his HD to a Linux machine...copy his My Documents off to the
Linux box....will this keep the virus from encrypting any more files...???

Then I reformat and rebuild his Win 7...only way I can be sure virus is gone...
Now I move his My Docs back...the files that got encrypted won't work...but the files that are NOT encrypted will work....(I hope)...

I'm assuming with the virus gone...any infected files will not spread the infection to any other files...

First, I would make an image of the drive to make sure that if anything gets changed, he can at least make a full restore to pay the ransom.

Next, I would mount the HDD in another OS, and try to read and copy off as many files as possible. Do not worry as so long as you are booting into a different OS the virus will not be running.
It is hard to say how many files got encrypted in 15 minutes, that would depend on the speed of the CPU, RAM etc of the computer. However, there is a good chance that many of the files will be encrypted.

If you are able to recover any unencrypted files, make sure to scan them to ensure that cryptolocker is not among them or your client will get reinfected.

Finally, I would definitely completely reinstall windows (make sure you delete and re-create the partitions in windows set up).

You could boot the laptop to a Linux disc and see what is what that way without having to remove the drive from the laptop. Clonezilla, or Ghost can be used to make the image of the HDD before starting.

Read the section on "What should you do when you discover your computer is infected with CryptoLocker"

This suggests a way to stop further infection. If System Restore points are available you then could try to restore everything using a point before the infection took place.

Here is some helpful info from MalwareBytes/ http://blog.malwarebytes.org/intelligence/2013/10/cryptolocker-ransomware-what-you-need-to-know/
You should scan with MalwareBytes after trying the procedure recommended by Bleeping Computer. Perhaps with the Pro version in light of the information. Perhaps do this before trying System Restore.
I do not know if you can still download and install MalwareBytes on a PC already infected. If not, download to a thumb drive on another PC and transfer to the infected PC. You may also have to change the file extension to .com in order to install.

Got the MoneyPak card at Walmart...scrapped off the silver stuff to get the number...
Carefully entered the number on the Crypto screen...followed the prompts...

Let it run all night...had error message that cannot find the MoneyPak number...
Re-entered number...
Ran a few hours and same issue...

Now...after almost 2 days viper finds some infections...jumble of letters and numbers so
I'm assuming that pertains to Crypto...

But now one of the Crypto screens does NOT show up...

I uninstall Vipre...make sure Inet connection is good...
Then I had to follow Crypto instructions to download Crypto again...
Got that done, but Win 7 does NOT like that file...2-3 warning screens to go thru...

Got Crypto installed again...and in about 1 minute it starts decrypting the files...

Earlier I did open a number of files, Doc Xls and PDF and all were encrypted...

So now...when Crypto gets done decrypting...should I follow Bleeping computers
instructions to get rid of Crypto....or should I reformat and reinstall...???

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